LTE

London Tests of English

Session One: 2006

Tape Script

Level 3

L24852

RUBRIC:

Hello everyone! Today’s test is the London Tests of English Level
Three. The theme of this test is A Visit to New York. This test
lasts two hours. There are five tasks. Tasks One and Two are
listening. You must listen to the tape and write your answers in

the booklet. Good luck!

Task One: The History of New York City

You are planning a holiday to New York City. To plan your trip, you decide to find
out as much as you can about New York. You listen to a radio programme about the
history of the city.

Listen to the programme and complete the notes below. The first one is an
example.

You will hear the programme twice. Do as much as you can the first time and finish
your work the second time.

You have one minute to read the notes.

[ONE MINUTE PAUSE]

Listen carefully. The programme starts now.

[TONE/BEEP]

[FIVE SECOND PAUSE]

Good morning. This is ‘City Focus’, the weekly radio programme that
explores the history and background of some of the world’s most famous
cities. Today, we visit New York, to see what lies behind the scenes of one
of the world’s most charismatic holiday destinations.

The area now known as New York City was originally occupied by Native
Americans. For more than 11,000 years, they carried on their traditional
ways of life. Then, in 1524 at what is now New York Bay, the ship of

Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian explorer, arrived. No changes followed his
visit, but in 1609 the English explorer, Henry Hudson, arrived and claimed
the area for the Dutch East India Company.

Emigrants from Europe, specifically Holland, then started to settle in the
area, which they named New Amsterdam, and by 1625 had established a
profitable fur trade with the Native Americans. Advertisements in Europe
tempted adventurous travellers with promises of sunny weather and a new

future.

In the 1670s, the Dutch colony was taken over by the British and renamed
New York, after the historic British city. The settlers were mainly farmers,
and the town remained very small.

In the 1700s, there was a series of protests against the British, which turned
into the American War of Independence. British soldiers finally went home

in 1783, and George Washington was sworn in as the president of the newly

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independent republic on the balcony of Federal Hall in Wall Street in 1789.
By this time New York was a busy seaport of 33,000 people.

The city’s population grew dramatically in the early nineteenth century,

rising from 65,000 in 1800 to 250,000 in 1820 due to immigration from
Europe. This continued throughout the century, and wealthy businessmen
built grand mansions in several areas of the city. Also at this time the first
of the city’s famous skyscrapers were built to house business headquarters.
By 1900 the population had risen to 3 million, and a second wave of
European immigrants increased this to 7 million by 1930. It was during this
period that underground subways replaced horse-drawn transport.

Unlike the major European cities, New York was untouched by the Second
World War, and continued to prosper culturally and economically. New
roads were built in the 1950s to link the city centre to the suburbs, and
many people took advantage of this opportunity to move to nicer housing
areas.

However, the bubble of success in New York burst in the 1970s, due to
computer technology which allowed business to be carried out from

anywhere in the world. The economic depression lasted for several years,
only to be halted when large sums of money were pumped into the city by
the government in the 1980s. The city’s self-confidence has continued to
grow since then and large areas of the city have been transformed into
tourist attractions. Tragedy hit the city in September 2001 when two
hijacked aircraft flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. But,
New York has been used to hardship throughout its history, and residents
have risen to the challenges they have been faced with. The strength of

character of New Yorkers remains unchanged.

[Fades towards end]

Thanks for joining us today. Next week ‘City Focus’ will visit Moscow ….

[FIVE SECOND PAUSE]

RUBRIC: You will now hear the programme again.

[TONE/BEEP]


[REPEAT RECORDED TEXT]

[FIVE SECOND PAUSE]


RUBRIC: That is the end of Task One. Now go on to Task Two.

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Task Two: Shopping in New York

RUBRIC: New York is famous for its shops, and you would like to do some shopping
while you are there. Two of your friends, Mark and Katrina, have been there

before, and they have a conversation about some of their favourite shops.

Listen to their conversation and complete the notes in the table below. Some have
been done for you as examples.

You will hear the conversation twice. Do as much as you can the first time and
finish your work the second time.

You have one minute to look at the table.

[ONE MINUTE PAUSE]

Listen carefully. The conversation starts now.

[TONE/BEEP]

[FIVE SECOND PAUSE]


Mark: I was thinking about New York the other day – weren’t the shops amazing?!

Katrina: Absolutely. I’d recommend shopping there to anybody.

M:

Which was your favourite shop?

K:

Gosh, it’s hard to say. They’re so different. Bloomingdales, probably.

M:

Oh yes, which street was it on?

K:

East 59

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Street. It wasn’t a very attractive shop from the outside, I mean

architecturally, and the food hall is nowhere near as good as Harrods, say,
but it was great for clothes. I wear those jeans I bought all the time!

M:

Wasn’t it a bit old-fashioned though?

K:

Not at all. They’ve got a lot of new designer gear in there now, by young
designers – some of it’s really stylish and quite unusual! You preferred Saks,
didn’t you?

M:

Yes, I did like it better than Bloomingdales because it had more men’s

clothes. Shopping isn’t just for girls, you know!

K:

What did you buy? I can’t remember. Wasn’t it those black shoes?

M:

No, they were from Macy’s. I got all those shirts in Saks. They had a sale on,
don’t you remember, on the ground floor?

K:

Oh yes, that floor was huge, wasn’t it? And the staff there were really

helpful, not like in the makeup department at Bloomingdales. The stock was
all quite fashionable too, I seem to remember.

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M:

Yes, I bought eight shirts there. Some for work and some for the weekends.
They were about half the price of shirts in London. I wish I’d bought more.
The only problem was that - even though the shop only sells clothes - they

didn’t have many different colours – and it’s nice for men to wear bright
colours sometimes!

K:

I agree. And then there was Macy’s. Do you remember that free firework
display there? It was part of the Independence Day celebrations I think.

M:

It was stunning wasn’t it? Just like the shop! Where was it again? Was it
Broadway?

K:

No, not Broadway. West 34

th

Street. Macy’s claims to be the world’s largest

department store – I’m not sure if it is or not, but it’s certainly very
popular. Maybe partly due to the fireworks!

M:

Yes, it was really crowded when we were there, wasn’t it? That was the
only thing I didn’t like about it.

K:

Yes, it was a bit busy. But it has those special Wednesday One Day Sales.
You remember, where everything in the shop is cheap on a Wednesday! It’s
great for interesting food from different parts of the world too…

[Fades towards end]

M:

Oh, stop it! You’re making me want to go shopping ….

[FIVE SECOND PAUSE]

RUBRIC: You will now hear the conversation again.

[TONE/BEEP]

[REPEAT RECORDED TEXT]

[FIVE SECOND PAUSE]

RUBRIC: That is the end of the listening tasks. The other tasks test your reading
and writing of English. Now go on to Task Three.

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